Well. This book is terrifying.

Maybe it's just that it touches on a subject (i.e. the cult of motherhood) that pushes all my buttons, but this was a genuinely upsetting, disturbing book (and I mean that as a compliment, or course). Where other books I've read this year have creeped me out, Just Like Mother had me honestly wishing I could disinfect my brain. I think the best recommendation I can offer is that I had to go watch hours of cartoons before I could go to bed because there was no way I was getting through the night without nightmares otherwise.

Part of why Just Like Mother worked so well for me (read: terrified me) is because of how brutally it intersects with our current timeline re: not just reproductive rights but, again, this cult of motherhood where even so called "progressive" women willingly reduce themselves and other uterus having folks to nothing better than baby makers by trying to couch the act of giving birth into some pseudo-spiritual experience of giving life that makes us basically holy?

Hold on, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. And clearly Heltzel agrees, because this book is nothing if not a takedown of that kind of rhetoric, which is not only aggressively anti-women (while being sold as feminist) but also deeply transphobic in its singular idea of womanhood. My heart was in my throat (and so was my stomach) the entire time, particularly as someone with 0 interest in childbirth now living in a world that's increasingly anti-choice/pro-birth.

All this to say that if you're looking for a work of sociocritical horror that will make your skin crawl, particularly related to reproductive rights, I highly recommend Just Like Mother. But make sure you buckle up, folks, because oof, it's a rough one.

I read this book over a month ago but couldn't put a review into words other than WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?! This book 🫠😩 if you've read it, you know.

I can't remember the last time a book had me so stressed out and feeling absolute unease and such an overwhelming sense of dread. The entire time you KNEW Maeve, the main character, was going to experience the absolute worst, but you had no idea how or when. This book took over my LIFE while reading it and it was an immediate five ⭐

The story follows Maeve as she reconnects with her cousin, Andrea. Both women were born into and raised in a cult — The Mother Collective — and haven't seen each other since the night the cult was infiltrated. The two are thrilled to reconnect as adults, but something is off.

Andrea has made a fortune in the fertility industry, and invented weird AI babies that gave me the CREEPS!! I hated every minute they were mentioned. She also REALLY wants a baby of her own, and keeps trying to guilt Maeve into helping her 🚩🚩🚩

There's an incredible amount of manipulation, unreliable narration, tension, overall BAD VIBES, and a disgusting sense of pride and importance placed on the concept of motherhood. As a child-free adult woman I was SCREAMING.

The plot is incredibly dark, and it's a unique take on a domestic gothic thriller. Trigger warnings galore, so please take care of yourself before/during reading it.

Just Like Mother is a thriller novel about the danger of cults and groupthink, how danger can always be hiding in plain sight. I love books that are based around cults, and this one was really interesting to me. It takes a different route than cult books typically do, but I really enjoyed the ride that this book took me on. If you're a fan of books about cults and books with twists and turns, this one is for you!

I wanted to read this book because I thought it would be right in my wheelhouse. However, I couldn't finish it. The writing didn't grab me at all.

This book was OK. It was a bit slow getting started. I did like the character development but the story was not one that i liked very much. It was hard to finish. The story was just too predictible.

Very overdue review so for that I apologize. I finished this book a long time ago, in April to be exact. And still to this day I am not entirely sure what I read!

What first grabbed my attention was that it was a book about cults. Anything about those, I am game for. Give me all of them! But what kept me turning the pages on my Kindle was the story between Andrea and Maeve. Because not only was this a crazy cult, but it was also two sisters who were extremely hurt and experienced a common bond with their betrayal from each other.

Andrea clearly has issues. She was firmly set in her brainwashing and had no desire to think or see otherwise. Maeve was entirely too trusting. She knew what kind of family they both came from but to continue to go back each and every time when red flags were going off left and right was just annoying. The whole doll thing was really creepy but I love that it brought a creep factor that went beyond just the cult being the center of the horror. I really liked that the author included a backstory as the book progressed. It left us wanting more cause we had to see how far this went! I love quick reads with short chapters which this was. But the unlikeable characters is ultimately why I rate it a 3/5 stars.

I was hooked on this book from the very first page! It was fast paced and I could not put it down. I loved all the twists and turns it took me on!

As a woman, once you reach a certain age it seems like the world becomes an endless barrage of “when are you going to have kids,” or “your biological clock is ticking – time is running out.” It’s super annoying. Just Like Mother takes the annoyance of the reality that most people view women as breeding machines and can’t imagine them not wanting to be drowning in squalling children and takes it to an even darker, more horrifying place.

Take that ‘slapping you in the face with the need to have babies’ mentality and add a bit of culty-devotion to the notion (I hate myself for that). Now in addition to that, how about a splash of Gilead? Are you terrified yet? What if I added the possibility of robo-babies?

See, I knew I’d get you. That’s an impossibly frightening combination of baby/bodily autonomy nightmare fuel. Especially when taken in conjunction with the never-ending “but are women actually people” debate here in America, and I don’t think I even wanted to exist for like a week after finishing Just Like Mother.

But despite what sounds like a ringing non-endorsement, I honestly loved it. See, I find it cathartic to read things that are terrifying because it’s safe in a book. No matter how bad things get, they’re still just make believe (for now). And Just Like Mother is scary. Make no mistakes – it’s messed up. But…it’s also beautifully written, ultimately cathartic, and just a lot of pulse-pounding fun.

It’s a pointed examination of the damaging effects of forced motherhood, religious extremism, and societal pressures that women face to be little more than breeding machines. It even touches on a bit of the problematic nature of #girlboss culture. And I think that right now, in the current political climate in America (religious extremism masquerading as politics), it’s a pretty timely read.

*this review goes live on my website 11/30/2022*

This one is tough to review because I liked it yet didn’t at the same time?

I enjoyed the cult aspect, but wish we saw more of it than the tiny glimpses/flashbacks from Maeve. But I also understand that the story was more about the cult’s affect on Maeve and Andrea/their psyches.

That leads me to Andrea and her whole deal, which I did find interesting. I do not want to be a mother, and the idea of having kids makes me want to vomit. But there are lots of people out there who do want kids and can’t have them for whatever reason, or have lost a child, and such grief potentially could lead to extremism, particularly if someone was already brainwashed by a cult. All of that playing out was fine, but then the author maybe tried to go too big at the end? I wasn’t very satisfied by the last twist(s).

I will say, though, that it was so cringey listening to Andrea and her friends’ nonsense about womanhood and how women’s biggest strength comes from giving birth. I appreciated that the author challenged this at the end, especially mentioning that this line of thinking excludes trans women.

I guess I’m frustrated because a lot of things were pretty obvious, so when Maeve completely ignored them or didn’t even seem to catch them, it wasn’t totally believable. I almost feel like this could have been more interesting with Andrea’s POV included, because Maeve was a bit boring throughout most of the story.

CW: child loss, rape, torture, abduction, gore, cults

I very much enjoyed reading this! The writing was strong and the story was enjoyable. I recommend it.

This book was a little slow to start, but once I got to chapter 3 I was hooked. I have always found cult mentality interesting, so of course I would pick this book up. It is based on a fictitious cult of The Mothers who do not value males at all. The point of view jumps from snippets of Mauve’s childhood in the cult where you know something tragic occurred on her 8th birthday to present day where 33 year old Mauve finds one of her cousins and fellow child of the cult through a DNA testing website. Not much more I can say without giving anything away. This is a book that you will not want to put down… it is twisted and keeps you guessing who you can actually trust.

I really wanted to like this cult themed thriller about cousins who ended up escaping and then their lives many years later. I felt that we didn't really get too much of the cult aspect but just enough that we knew the girls were really mentally abused by the "mothers" of the cult and how it affected their lives growing up. At times this book was very disturbing, so I would consider looking up trigger warnings before reading. I was very intrigued with the author's writing style and I am interested to see what the author will write next. Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book early.

Thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This was a great book that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. I’ll read more by this author in the future!

While it may not be as talked about as it should have been, Anne Heltzel's "Just Like Mother" absolutely slays.

This was a wild ride for sure! I’m not easily rattled, but there were definitely parts of this book that creeped me out and the ending is absolutely skin-crawling!
I really enjoyed the overall message of this book and found it incredibly creative how Heltzel portrayed it. There’s a lot of pressure and expectation of women surrounding life choices and I can appreciate the feminist undertones and message it delivers.
There are some gory parts of this book, so if that isn’t your thing you might want to reconsider reading this one.
There were a few loose ends I thought were going to be tied up by the end and a of couple instances I thought were going to be revisited or more thoroughly explained and weren’t hence the 4⭐️ and not 5.
I did thoroughly enjoy reading this one though and was actually really sad when the book was done. I had the hardest time putting this book down and I look forward to reading more from this author!
A big thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I think that was fun. I had a few issues but not enough to detract from the book as a whole. I think this would a good addition to a collection that had similar titles.

3 ⭐️

Thank you Netgalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire and Anne Heltzel for free e-ARC in return of my honest review.

The cult of Mothers. Maeve and Andrea are raised in a cult community led by women they all call mothers. When they were young the community was raided and kids were put to foster care and then to adoption. Maeve and Andrea has similar experiences but different outcomes. One was raised by loving adoptive parents, the other has to hop from one foster care to another until her 18th birthday. The environment has established their personalities.

Overall, Just Like Mother is quite an interesting book, especially reading it from the perspective of a mother. I’d assume that every mother has her children’s interests as a priority, however if a child has two parents- both must be involved in a decision making process. Anne Heltzel offered a different perspective of the role of the father and a man in the process of raising a child and put a mother on top of all, not even child’s mother - some Mother Mother. The author made it a thriller and tried to chill the reader with every page being turned. I found it fine for a thriller that actually raises a few interesting questions about motherhood and parenthood in particular.

Will be looking forward to new books by Anne Heltzel.

This story gripped me. Like, put my nerves on end the entire time. The premise is two cousins, Maeve and Andrea, whose lives get upturned as children after they leave the cult they were born into. After many years, they finally reconnect as adults. Maeve is coming to terms with her past, present, and future while reconnecting with her cousin that was her best friend as a kid. But not all is right and life quickly becomes a nightmare.

This book is gripping. It left me guessing and needing to keep reading to figure out what is going on. The ending is enough to turn your blood to ice. Maeve is also such a likable character and I was rooting for her throughout. This book also brings up, of course, motherhood and being a woman but not a mother. I've met many women who have strong opinions about motherhood and this book highlights the extreme way people can view it and their fellow women.

Highly recommend!

I did not intend to read this book all in one day but once I started I could not put it down. It is horrifyingly chilling and even when you can see what's coming, it keeps you riveted to the very end. Maeve and Andrea grew up as cousins in a cult run by women until Maeve makes an escape one day and the two are separated after the cult is raided. After decades apart, they reconnect through a DNA service. Maeve feels so lucky to have found her long lost cousin but is surprised at how well adjusted and successful she seems compared to herself. As they spend more time together, Maeve begins to lean more and more about Andrea as things begin to go wrong in her own life. She ends up spending time with Andrea and her husband at their Catskills mansion and begins to unravel the different ways these two have dealt with the past, especially with their own diverse feelings about motherhood.

This book is as creepy as the cover suggests. You begin to second guess things and wonder about what really happened all those years ago in the cult. The ending took my breath away. If you enjoyed The Push, I think you might really like this one. I will say that I would not recommend this to new mothers or those who are dealing with infertility. Other than that, I recommend if you are looking for a great psychological thriller.

This book will hook you immediately, terrify you, and not let you go until it is thoroughly done with you.